Line #70 Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0_122.jpg]]
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3	''[[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/beautybeast/index.html Beauty and the Beast]]'' is an old French FairyTale that was, at the time, basically propaganda for ArrangedMarriage using RagsToRoyalty. Over time it has lost that meaning and become more romanticized. The original literary version of the story was written in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, and was a sprawling and convoluted affair of {{contrived coincidence}}s and last-minute exposition, in which the Beast and Beauty were revealed to be [[KissingCousins first cousins]], and Beauty is [[HalfHumanHybrid half-fairy]] (on her mother's side), and royalty (on her father's side). In 1756, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont condensed it to the version which is best known today (excepting Disney's). While using tropes found in older folk fairy tales, de Villeneuve's version is the first to use the title "Beauty and the Beast", and the psychological plot -- revolving around Beauty's mental conflict -- is not found in folk tales prior to this one.
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5	In Leprince de Beaumont's version, Beauty is the daughter of a rich merchant who is suddenly plunged into poverty. When one of his ships comes in unexpectedly, the merchant asks his three daughters what they would like him to bring them for presents. The two eldest ask for jewelry and dresses, but Beauty only wants a rose.
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7	The ship turns out not to be profitable, and the merchant turns back, empty-handed. There is a winter storm, and he takes shelter in a mysterious but hospitable castle, where, finding a magically summer garden, he picks a rose for his daughter. Immediately, a monstrous beast appears and threatens his life. The merchant pleads on his daughters' behalf, and the Beast allows the merchant to go home to say goodbye to his daughters, or persuade one of them to come in his place.
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9	The daughters succeed in learning the father's adventures, and Beauty insists on going in his place. She soon finds that the Beast is gentle and polite, in spite of his appearance, and that he wishes her to marry him. She refuses to do so, although she grows increasingly fond of him. One day, on learning that her father is ill, she asks the Beast to let her go home and visit her family. He does so, reluctantly, asking her to come back within a week.
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11	Once she is home, her jealous sisters conspire to keep her longer, in the hopes of making the Beast angry with her. Their ploy succeeds, and Beauty remains at home until she has a dream of the dying Beast. Returning to the castle, she finds him in the garden, having lost his will to live. She tearfully agrees to marry him, which breaks the curse that had made him ugly. He is magically restored into a handsome prince. Beauty's sisters are turned into statues for their evil deeds, while Beauty and the former Beast live happily ever after.
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13	A free annotated translation of Villeneuve's original can be found [[https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=31052 here]]. The story as a whole is Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type ATU 425C, "Beauty and the Beast", which has a good number of variants (some found [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200223031308/http://surlalunefairytales.com:80/beautybeast/other.html here]] and [[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0425c.html here]]), but is less common than tales of 425A, such as "Literature/EastOfTheSunAndWestOfTheMoon". The counterpart in the [[Creator/TheBrothersGrimm Grimm collection]] is "Literature/TheSingingSpringingLark". Also compare "Literature/TheFeatherOfFinistTheFalcon". Distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of "Myth/CupidandPsyche".
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15	The tale has been widely adapted in many media, often as a TwiceToldTale. These adaptations have [[DerivativeWorks/BeautyAndTheBeast their own index]].
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17	Obviously, this work is the {{Trope Namer\|s}} and TropeMaker for BeastAndBeauty and BeautyToBeast. Probably more significant in terms of trope theory for giving us TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside, which is one of the more common {{A\|nAesop}}esops.
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19	Author Creator/JosephJacobs offered a reconstruction of Beauty and the Beast tales in his book ''Literature/EuropeanFolkAndFairyTales'', with the story ''Beauty and the Beast''.
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21	!!Tropes specific to Villeneuve's original:
22	* AbhorrentAdmirer: The Evil fairy served as this to both the Beast/Prince and Beauty's biological father at different points in the backstory.
23	* AnAesop: A person’s kind heart and good virtue is more valuable than their physical appearance and wit.
24	* AlliterativeTitle: '' '''B'''eauty and the '''B'''east''. Also in the original language, French: ''La '''B'''elle et la '''B'''ête''.
25	* AndIMustScream: The Prince/Beast is a victim of this as well: part of the curse is that he retains all his intelligence, eloquence, et cetera, but will be physically unable to speak as he normally does or tell anyone about the curse.
26	* {{Animorphism}}: The Beast is cursed into his monstrous form, and eventually changed back.
27	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Beauty is the most attractive of her sisters, and, of course, the Beast doesn't stay ugly.
28	** de Villeneuve's version takes it even further with the fairies: the fairy who cursed the prince is said to be old and ugly and is clearly intended to be unsympathetic, whereas the fairy who helps the prince is said to be beautiful and good-hearted.
29	* BeautyToBeast: The Beast used to be a handsome prince.
30	* TheChessmaster: In one of the most virtuous examples, the good fairy moves many things to make sure both curses are ended and that Beauty and Beast are perfect for one another. She wasn't kidding when she said it wasn't going to be easy.
31	* {{Curse}}: The cause for Beast's hideous outward appearance. However Beauty is also cursed to have to grow up to marry a beast.
32	* CurseEscapeClause: A girl (specifically a [[NatureAdoresAVirgin virgin]] in some versions) must fall in love with and/or agree to marry the Beast in spite of his monstrous appearance for him to be restored to his human form.
33	* DaddysGirl: Beauty is often stated to be her adoptive father's favorite.
34	* DeathByDespair: In several versions, the Beast begins dying out of sheer misery when Beauty doesn't return by the scheduled time he gave her.
35	* DebateAndSwitch: The queen is dismayed to find that the woman who broke her son's curse is only a merchant's daughter, not royalty or even nobility. The good fairy chides her not to reject Beauty just because of her low birth; but in the end the convenient ReallyRoyaltyReveal means the queen is never forced to choose between her classist values and her son's happiness.
36	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: It's quite a common belief that the story is meant to be a metaphor for arranged marriages, but quite a few readers have noticed that the Beast's curse comes across as a fantasy world metaphor for having been sexually assaulted.
37	** In the book, it's mentioned that the Prince is young enough that he can’t be left home alone when his mother, the queen, goes off to war, and a Fairy requests that the Queen leave her son in her care. But the Fairy falls in love, and the now fifteen-year-old Prince doesn’t feel the same way. When the Fairy realises that she isn't going to get her way, she severely hurts the Prince and ruins any chance of him being able to be married normally. The Prince is left abused, tortured, transformed, and not even able to properly express himself—-only able to think just as he normally does, but unable to express those thoughts, unable to communicate effectively, unable to even let Beauty get to know him as he really is--much like anyone else who has been raped or sexually assaulted.
38	** Even the encounter with the merchant can be read as a form of sexual assault, as what the Merchant did to Beast was very wrong. The Beast sheltered, protected, fed him, lavishly met his every need, provided his transport home. The Merchant commits three serious crimes when he plucks that rose. (1) He broke the social contract between host and guest, taking more than was offered, without permission or consideration, dishonoring his host's generosity; (2) he stole property that happened to be one of the Beast's most prized possessions; and (3) what the property he stole was: a rose. Of all the fairy tale symbols of beauty and fertility, the rose is special. What might the plucking of that rose might mean to Beast? Ponder the meaning of the word: ''deflower''. Given Beast's history, the theft of his rose is no paltry offense. Even in ignorance of his host's circumstances, the Merchant's ungrateful choice to steal his host's rose is inexcusable. If we cannot, in good conscience, blame the victimized Beast for being cursed in the first place, how can we then blame him for his anger when he is re-victimized by yet another questionable parent-figure? The Merchant's act can be interpreted as being a sexual insult toward a character who expressed nothing but compassion toward a stranger in need. This is why the offender's crime can be answered only by either death or a fulfillment via marriage of the "deflowering" the offender initiated. Since marrying the Merchant is certainly out of the question for Beast, once Beast learns who the rose is for, a path toward mercy is revealed. For all that, it's a grim choice to ask a man and his daughter(s) to make, it's still a choice. A choice that can satisfy the interests of both justice and love, unraveling the horrors of rape for all the characters. The Beast insists that it must be the daughter's choice whether or not she will intervene to finish what her father started (a clue about Beast's true character).
39	* DisproportionateRetribution: The poor merchant didn't even ''know'' that taking a single flower would lead to either his death or the loss of his beloved daughter.
40	** This trope was played with in the original version, the DisproportionateRetribution was actually something that the Beast's Fairy beneficiary ordered him to do as it was a part of her plan to ensure that the curse would be reversed. In other words, the Beast didn't want to threaten the Merchant, but he knew that he had to to ensure that everything would be set right.
41	** The Beast himself is always the victim of an angry fairy, and sometimes it's not even his fault - in the original Villeneuve version, he rejected an evil old fairy who was supposed to be his guardian.
42	* DoggedNiceGuy: The Beast keeps on asking Beauty to marry him every night even when she keeps on refusing, and it's Beauty's realization that he really is a kind and caring man underneath his monstrous exterior that induces her to finally agree to marry him.
43	* DumbIsGood: In this version it portrays Beast as rather lacking of intellect. This is a virtue in this telling, and at the end of the story, she even meets the fairy who cast the spell who tells her that a "true heart" is better than good looks or "clever brains". Beaumont changed this to praise Beauty for choosing virtue over "wit or beauty".
44	* TheFairFolk: A heavy presence in the original story given three different fairies play major roles. This is typically adapted out.
45	* FriendshipAsCourtship: Beauty and the Beast’s relationship in every version. She initially saw him as her friend until she realised that she loved him, and accepted his proposal of marriage.
46	* GildedCage: After Beauty arrives at the castle, she is waited on hand and foot by the Beast's servants, and she has free reign of the castle, but is not allowed to leave, and the Beast asks for hand in marriage every day.
47	* GirlOfMyDreams: In de Villeneuve and Beaumont's versions, Beauty dreams of a handsome young man begging her to help him which adds to her reluctance to agree to marry the Beast.
48	* HappilyEverAfter: No matter what the journey to get there, the Beast turns back into a handsome prince[[note]]almost always; some modern adaptations like [=McKinley's=] ''Rose Daughter'' have him stay in his "beast" form, but this is [[FridgeHorror supposedly]] not depicted as a negative[[/note]] and Beauty always gets a fairy tale wedding.
49	* HiddenHeartOfGold: The Beast.
50	* IJustWantToBeNormal: This is the eponymous Beast's desire after being transformed from a handsome prince into a hideous beast.
51	* KissingCousins: Beauty and the Beast learn that they have been related all along. Beauty's biological father and Beast's mother were siblings.
52	* MassiveNumberedSiblings: The Villeneuve version of the tale gives Beauty six brothers as well as five sisters. Subsequent versions reduce the number of siblings (see RuleOfThree below).
53	* MeaningfulName: The heroine is given a name that means "beauty" or "rose" in nearly all adaptations.
54	* MissingMom: Beauty's adoptive family is missing one, despite the merchant having a dozen children. In her biological father's kingdom, he's not entirely sure what happened to his wife but we the reader get to learn why she's missing in the backstory.
55	* NoNameGiven: Beauty is named. Everybody else? Not so much.
56	* ObfuscatingStupidity: This version of the tale notes that along with his appearance, the Beast was also required to act witless and stupid, thus ensuring that he would be judged only on the pureness of his heart and nothing else.
57	* ParentalMarriageVeto: Twice by the same character.
58	** The first time, the queen politely rejects the old Fairy’s proposal of marriage, which the Prince [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe does not object to]].[[note]] In the original tale by Gabrielle de Villeneuve, due to a declaration of war, the Queen entrusted her infant son into the care of a Fairy. After leaving for a few years, and returning when the Prince was around 14, upon seeing how beautiful the Prince had become in his adolescence, the Fairy realised that she’d fallen in love with him and asked him to marry her, something he turned down on the grounds of believing that not only was he still too young to enter into such an arrangement, but he also saw the Fairy as nothing more than a maternal figure in his life. Scarcely a year later, when the war is over, the Fairy decides to ask the Queen for her permission to marry the Prince, something that the Queen turns down for many a reason. [[IfICantHaveYou You can guess what happens next...]][[/note]]
59	** The second time, after the Prince had been freed from his curse, the Queen objects to him marrying Beauty (before the reveal of her parentage) because she is a merchant's daughter and, she claims, affection for her missing niece.
60	* ReallyRoyaltyReveal: In de Villenueve's version, Beauty was a princess who turned out to be SwitchedAtBirth.
61	* SwitchedAtBirth: In Villeneuve's version, this turns out to have happened to Beauty, but not at birth. The merchant's youngest daughter, a toddler, was ill and taken to the countryside for treatment. She conveniently perished just as the good fairy was looking for a safe place for her niece.
62	* TalkingInYourDreams: In the oldest version, a handsome prince appears in her dreams, begging her to save him. In due course, he proves to ''be'' the Beast.
63	* [[KidHero Teen Hero]]: Beauty is canonically sixteen in the original tale by de Villeneuve. Likewise, in the same version, the Prince became a war hero at fifteen after saving his mother’s life.
64	* UngratefulBastard: In many versions, the queen does not want her son to marry a commoner, even when this "commoner" was the person who managed to break the prince's curse.
65	* VagueAge: The Prince/Beast. Beauty is canonically sixteen in the original tale by de Villeneuve, but the only age we’re given of the Prince is when he’s fifteen years old and was cursed, though the story implies that only a year or two has progressed since that day, so he’s possibly around 16-18. The fact that the Queen’s permission to marry the Prince is required by both the Fairy and Beauty only cements this possible age.
66	* TwoPersonLoveTriangle: In de Villeneuve's version, Beauty feels conflicted between the dream prince and the flesh-and-blood Beast.
67	** Additionally, the Queen tries to veto the marriage. After the explanation, she says, by way of apology, that she had recently learned of her niece and had thought that a more suitable match than a merchant's daughter -- but, of course, Beauty is the niece.
68	* VillainBall: The evil fairy makes a remarkable blunder in cursing two cousins with curses that in theory could cancel each other out. The good fairy is quick to pick up on this and decides to set the whole thing up.
69	* WifeHusbandry: In the original tale written by Villeneuve, the fairy had been the Prince’s nurse and raised him from infancy, even allowing the Prince to call her "mother". It was when he was around 14 that the Fairy realised that the Prince has become quite beautiful, and she began to long for his hand in marriage. Soon afterwards, the Fairy requests the permission to marry him from the Queen (despite the fact that the Prince has already turned down her proposal, on the grounds that he was too young, and he didn’t love her in that way), too which the Queen rejects on the grounds that the Fairy is already too old to wed her son. [[IfICantHaveYou The Fairy is obviously not impressed, and decides to take her anger out on the Prince...]]
70	* WomanScorned: The original version had the Beast cursed due to the fact that both he, and his Queen Mother, did not wish for him to marry the Fairy.
71	* YoungestChildWins: Beauty is always the youngest daughter.
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74	!!Tropes originated by Beaumont's revision and alterations thereafter:
75	* AdaptationalVillainy: Beauty's sisters get this treatment in Beaumont's version, going from somewhat self-centered and envious of Beauty in Villeneuve's original story, to flat-out evil sisters who plot to stop Beauty from returning to the Beast in the hope that it will cause him to get angry and devour her (even though in Villeneuve's story, they were actually more than happy to see her return to the Beast, if only because their suitors were getting too enamored of her, and it was her well-meaning father and brothers who begged her to stay longer). Ironically, they often undergo AdaptationalHeroism in modern retellings, being portrayed as completely supportive and loving of Beauty in Robin [=McKinley=]'s ''[[Literature/BeautyARetellingOfBeautyAndTheBeast Beauty]]'', ''Literature/RoseDaughter'', and several other retellings.
76	* AdaptationSpeciesChange: [[spoiler:Beauty is actually a half-fairy in the original version, while most versions made her a full human]].
77	* AnAesop: Depending on what version you're reading, "be good to those less fortunate" (or just "don't turn away a traveler.") Several variants (most famously the Disney film) portray the Beast's predicament as a result of refusing to allow a fairy to take shelter in his castle and getting cursed as punishment.
78	* AesopEnforcer: Whoever is responsible for turning the Prince into a Beast usually intends for the Prince to learn the Aesop as well as the audience.
79	* AndIMustScream: In some versions, [[spoiler:the two older sisters are punished in the end by being turned into statues by a good fairy. They still retain their ability to see and feel Beauty's happiness]].
80	* BerserkButton: Despite his monstrous appearance, the Beast is a kind individual and a gracious host... but for your own sake, ''don't'' pick one of his roses. Though in the original he only does this because the good fairy told him to.
81	* DisproportionateRetribution: The fairy in some versions curses everyone in the kingdom as well as the ruler - if it's karmic, it's because she blames them for letting him getting so bad. But really, what servant would want to speak up to a selfish violent royal that would probably just kick them out, banish them, or even kill them (and probably also their families) for calling him on his behavior?
82	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: It's the tale of a young woman who's forced to move into the home of a wealthy gentleman because of an arrangement that he made with her father. Considering the time period, it's extremely likely that this was intended as a metaphor for {{arranged marriage}}, with the story serving to prepare young girls for the day when ''they'' would be sent away to live with unfamiliar men.
83	* GildedCage: In every version, though there are variations, Beauty's father was to be killed by the beast [[note]] or so they thought[[/note]]. When she takes her father's place in the castle, she is waited on hand and foot by the castle's servants, on the condition she can never leave and the Beast asks for her hand in marriage.
84	* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Many versions of the story have the Beast constantly mocking and belittling himself and his appearance in his conversations with Beauty. Beauty is constantly arguing that [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre he's better than that]].
85	* HornedHumanoid: The Beast in some versions.
86	* MissingMom: It's rare that Beauty's mom is ever mentioned at all.
87	* PrinceCharmingWannabe: Not a traditional part of the story, but modern adaptations often include a villainous suitor who is beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside as a {{foil}} to the Beast who is ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside. Jean Cocteau's 1946 film version may or may not be the first to include this character, naming him Avenant, but it's certainly the codifier. And, of course, Disney codified it further with Gaston.
88	** The George C. Scott adaptation also has a similar character named Anthony, predating the Disney version. Notably, he ends up marrying one of the evil sisters!
89	* ThePunishmentIsTheCrime: In contrast to the harsher punishments in the long original versions, some of the condensed versions of this story simply have the two older sisters' crime be that they are constantly envious of Beauty for both her good looks and how well she bears up under her various misfortunes; then, after everything works out so well for her, their punishment... is to go on being jealous of her for the rest of their miserable lives, which are only miserable because their envy keeps them from enjoying how well they've done for themselves.
90	* RagsToRoyalty: Beauty in almost every version starts out a commoner before marrying the prince.
91	* RuleOfThree: Mme. Leprince de Beaumont condensed the merchant's original family (six boys and six girls) to three of each. Most later versions further condense the merchant's children to three daughters and sometimes add a son or two (such as in the Cocteau version).
92	* SacredHospitality: A number of versions explained that the Prince became the Beast for violating this. Averted in the original version by De Villeneuve where the Prince was cursed for a [[IfICantHaveYou completely different reason]].
93	* TheSimpleGestureWins: In some tellings, Beauty has greedy, grasping sisters. Beauty ends up the favorite to their father, and thus the one he is most devoted to because her sisters demand expensive gifts from his travels, but Beauty makes the same request every time: come home safe and if you happen to run across a rose, that would be lovely. This backfires because her father is willing to go to extremes for her simple request and that's what gets him in trouble with the Beast.
94	* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: The Beast, in spite of his appearance, is kind to Beauty which causes her to eventually fall in love with him. (In contrast, [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast Disney's version]] goes the LoveRedeems route -- but even then, it's the Beast's inner goodness that Belle falls in love with.)
95	* SweetAndSourGrapes: She gets her handsome prince as soon as she decides that she doesn't care what the beast looks like.
96	* TakenForGranite: In some versions, [[spoiler:Beauty's two older sisters]] are turned into statues in the ending.

Context Literature / BeautyAndTheBeast